Present air-blown, screw-type container or cup feeding systems for dry off-set printing presses operate using four cup-engaging worm members having a plurality of guide rails, along with an air-jet system for blowing each cup or container onto a holding mandrel for printing of indicia on the outside surface of the container.
In present feeding systems, the operator inserts the container to be printed between the four worm members and manually adjusts the four worm screws until they are spaced apart at the same diameter of the container to be fed, so they engage the lip of the container. The operator then adjusts the four blow-off air arms to the correct location for seating the container on the mandrel, ready for offset printing. All of these manual adjustments vary with the particular operator, thus causing inconsistent container feeding, which causes container feeding jams. There are additional drawbacks. The previous feeding systems of this type were only hand-adjustable, such that the air-jets had to be constantly adjusted to blow-off each container out of the feeding system, and this caused constant jamming of the apparatus. In order to clear a jam, the operator had to manually crank a handle to back away the cup-engaging worm members and then reset the misaligned air-jets and guide arms of the feeding system to their previous position by operator "feel". This causes additional problems as each operator adjusts the system differently, with the end result being more inconsistent feeding of the containers. This in turn causes more jams, which translates to more misalignment of the air-jets and guide arms, as they become bent or broken, which causes large amounts of scrap containers being produced by present feeding systems. Thus, present systems are not cost effective or efficient.
There remains a need for an improved container feeding system that is automatic and adjustable, capable of feeding a single container at a time to the printing mandrel every time, with no variation. This would eliminate operator error or variations in setting up for different container sizes. Such a feeding system would also be utilized for all types of printing presses.